Valentina (22 page)

‘Leave it to me, Princess. Cursing a sentry is one thing; we may need tact with this gentleman.'

The interview didn't take long; de Lamballe presented his papers and the letter from Maret, who had said he thought it the maddest enterprise he had ever heard of, and given his guarantee with weary indifference. ‘The war is lost, and we are all lost with it. Go and be killed if you must.'

The officer in charge of the depot at Borrisov had only fourteen days left to live, but on the crisp, freezing November day, he thought of himself as immortal, if he considered the matter at all. He was only twenty-eight, and very confident; he had not ventured out in that weather further than his daily inspection of the bridge and back.

‘You may pass, Major,' he said. ‘May I ask you one question?'

‘You may ask,' de Lamballe said, ‘I won't promise to answer.'

‘Why the devil are you and two ladies going
into
Russia when everyone else is so intent on getting out?'

‘We are going to join the army,' the Major said. ‘I understand the Emperor is somewhere between here and Smolensk. We're going to look for a friend. Does that answer you?'

‘Major,' the younger man said, ‘after three and a half months in this place I can believe anything. Take the road to Orcha, if you can find any road in this wilderness. I can only tell you that. What I must do, in all conscience, is advise you to stay here and wait until our armies arrive. The Russians are in hot pursuit of the Emperor; they're advancing on both sides and from behind. We expect to be attacked here before long. If you go out into that countryside you will all be killed.'

‘Are we free to pass or not?' He turned to the woman looking out of the sledge. She was handsome in a dark, Mongolian way. Her tone was so insolent it made him blush with rage.

‘You are free,' he said, ‘if you are mad enough.'

‘Then for God's sake let's get on! Major, get in. Get those horses moving, Janos, before they freeze to the ground!'

The Major saluted, and a moment later the big sledge moved on its way over the bridge and disappeared on the opposite bank of the Beresina.

‘Mad,' the officer said to himself as he rode back. ‘Quite mad. They'll be cut to pieces by the Cossacks before they've gone fifty miles.' He returned to his comfortable quarters and forgot about them.

They had left Warsaw a week before, stopping two nights in Wilna, where de Lamballe obtained an interview with the Foreign Minister and a true assessment of the situation facing Napoleon's armies. He had made a last effort to dissuade Valentina from going on, but she only listened quietly, and then said she quite understood if he and her sister decided to turn back. She was leaving Wilna in the morning. She had been very silent on the long journey; she seemed detached from Alexandra and from him, though they slept side by side, ate together, studied the route together. She was gentle and she never complained, however uncomfortable the conditions, but she was withdrawn, her whole spirit concentrating on something, or rather someone, else.

‘If he's dead,' the Major said once to Alexandra when they were alone, ‘I'm afraid she'll kill herself.'

‘I think she will,' her sister said. ‘That's one of the reasons I'm glad you came with us; I'll need help to get her back to Poland. I wish to God she'd never set eyes on him! She's bewitched!'

‘She's very much in love,' the Major countered.

Alexandra shrugged irritably. ‘In love be damned! Sentimental nonsense!'

He had watched her and laughed. Since that encounter in his house he had never touched her; he didn't intend to until the moment was right. ‘You don't believe in love, I know,' he said, ‘but you will my dear Princess, you will. And when it happens you won't be any more sensible than your sister!'

On the third day they became enveloped in a blinding snowstorm; the horses slowed to a walk; the cold was so intense that the metal parts of the sledge burnt as if they were red hot. It was impossible to see, almost to breathe, and the Major forced Valentina to crouch on the floor covered completely by rugs, her sister unwilling and arguing furiously, beside her. The pace slackened until the sledge had stopped completely; within minutes snow had drifted above the level of the blades. De Lamballe sprang out, shielding his face with one arm, and stumbled to the lead horses. The near-side animal was trembling violently; it stood rigid in the traces, covered with hard freezing snow, and Ladislaw crouched on its neck; he was dead of cold. De Lamballe pulled him sideways, and dragged him off; within a few minutes he would be frozen stiff and impossible to move. He lifted him by the arms and laid him clear on the side; there was no time to waste trying to bury him, the snow would do that faster than any mere man with a shovel. He shouted at Janos, sitting unmoved on the far-side horse.

‘He's dead! How cold are you? Can you feel your limbs?'

‘Not very well, Sir,' Janos shouted back above the wind. ‘He hadn't been taking it well for the last few hours. I'm all right, I can go on a while yet.'

‘No you can't,' the Major decided. He didn't like the slow movements and the dull toneless voice; the man's blood was sluggish with cold and exhaustion. Soon he would drop down like his companion. ‘Get off,' he ordered. ‘Go back to the sledge and get inside. Tell the Princess what happened, tell her I said you must ride inside for a bit. I'll take the horse myself!'

He mounted in the footman's place, and took the reins in his hands. They were frozen stiff, and it took all his skill to get the horses to move forward. There was no visible route, the whole country was blotted out by swirling masses of snow; they crawled onward without direction, just moving to keep the animals alive. He wasn't aware of the cold after a time; the first savage impact of snow and wind tore his breath out of his body and filled his lungs with ice; his eyes closed against the blast and he rode on blindly, the stiff reins between his deadened hands, feeling less and less as he went on. It was only too easy to drift, as the wretched servant had done, hour after hour, until the semi-sleep became death. De Lamballe had a flask of brandy in his pocket; he made a great effort to get his right hand to his coat and pull it out, but it was so difficult, and the pocket flap seemed stuck to the cloth, that he gave up and forgot what he had started to do. Slowly, very slowly, the blizzard stopped, the curtain of snow thinned and the howling wind dropped. He pulled the horses up with a final effort and then almost fell into the snow. Janos bent over him. ‘Get up, Sir, come into the sledge. I'm all right now. Come on, Sir, you must make the effort!'

He got his legs to move and with the footman's arm supporting him, he reached the sledge and felt strong hands pulling inside. He didn't know it, but he had been outside in the arctic temperature for more than six hours. Alexandra bent over him; she dragged the gloves off his hands and rubbed them, and then Valentina wrapped a fur rug over him. He had his eyes open and he smiled into the dark face so close to his; she looked so furiously angry and he could hear her swearing. Her cheeks were wet with tears. ‘You fool, you idiot! You're half frozen to death. Valentina, give me the brandy flask!' She held it to his mouth and he swallowed, grimacing as the alcohol burnt his throat.

‘No more,' he said. ‘We'll need all we've got later on.' He wasn't any warmer, that would take some time, but the disembodied feeling of extreme cold had left him and he began to shiver.

Alexandra turned to her sister: ‘Leave him to me, I'll see to him. The damned idiot, exposing himself like that!'

She took him in her arms, drawing her own furs round him, pressing her body close to his to give him warmth, and she cursed him regularly until she felt his arms grow tight around her, and the shivering stopped. Then she kissed him; neither of them spoke.

That night they found a ruined house on an abandoned smallholding; the house itself was roofless, with only two walls standing; it had been burnt that summer during the French advance. They turned the sledge towards it, and found a barn with roof and walls intact, and they drove into it to shelter. Janos collected some wood and a little straw, and they made a fire in the middle of the earth floor, rubbed down the shivering horses and fed them, tethering them near to the blaze, and together they all sat round the burning wood and ate soup which Valentina warmed for them, and bread, and sausage. The servant excused himself; he was full and warm, and the respite in the sledge, with his mistress's brandy and two wolf-skin rungs on top of him, had saved his life. He was thankful but a little uncomfortable at the close contact with his superiors. He took a heavy blanket and rolled up in a corner to sleep.

‘Just think what it must be like for them,' Valentina said suddenly. ‘Think of the wounded, trying to walk in these conditions.'

‘That pompous fool said they were near Orcha,' Alexandra remarked. ‘That's about two hundred miles from Borrisov; we should reach it in three or four days, unless we have another blizzard.'

Valentina leant nearer the fire; her face was very thin, and there were deep circles under her eyes. It was extraordinary how beautiful she looked, in spite of everything she had endured. Looking at her, Alexandra suddenly felt sure that if she and de Lamballe were to fall and die in that ghastly waste outside, her sister would somehow get to Orcha, even if she had to go on foot. Even then she was only thinking of her objective of the French army and De Chavel, suffering the same conditions which were facing them.

‘Do you think I'll find him at Orcha?'

She asked the question of the Major, who hesitated. It was cruel to disappoint her, but crueller still to raise her hopes. He was insanely in love with her sister, but he admired and respected Valentina more than any woman he had ever met. Her Colonel was very lucky, if he was still alive.

‘Napoleon will be at Orcha,' he said gently. ‘That means with the main body of his troops—the ones fit to fight. The wounded will be well to the rear, with the rearguard. If Colonel De Chavel is unwounded, he'll be with the Emperor's troops. If not—the rearguard may be fifty or sixty miles behind. And they're being attacked all the time.'

‘He's wounded,' Valentina said. ‘I've known that for months. But I don't think he's dead.'

‘Tell me,' de Lamballe asked her, ‘what do you really hope to do, if you find him?'

‘Bring him back safely,' she said. ‘One man, with people to help him, can get through where fifty won't have a chance. I'm going to take him home. That's all.'

‘It sounds very simple,' Alexandra said. ‘You're going to take him home to Poland, that is if he's not dead, or doesn't refuse to come with you!'

‘If he's safe and well, I'll follow the army and wait for him,' Valentina said. ‘Please believe me, Major; he's my life. I don't care if he doesn't love me; he's never pretended to. He can go on without me, I can't exist without him. I've no shame, I'm afraid. I'll follow him wherever he goes, on any terms he likes. I don't expect either of you to understand. I can't do anything else.'

‘I know that now,' her sister said. ‘I thought at first it was a silly fantasy. Now I know it's a real madness. Why don't we stop talking about it and go to sleep?'

‘There's some straw over there,' the Major said. ‘You both deserve the sledge to yourselves tonight. I'll take some rugs and make a bed for myself.'

Valentina got up; she looked at them both and caught them looking at each other. ‘I'll go first,' she said. ‘I'm very tired and it's growing terribly cold. Good night, Major.'

He too got up and kissed her hand. ‘Good night, Madame. Princess?'

‘I'll sit for a while,' Alexandra almost barked at him. ‘You go, if you're ready.'

‘I'll wait for you,' he said; he sat down again, much closer to her this time, and she moved away.

‘I want a drink,' she said.

‘You drink too much.' He took the flask out and looked at it, then put it back in his greatcoat pocket.

‘Why did you kiss me today?' He asked the question casually, breaking a few thin sticks and throwing them into the sinking fire.

‘To warm you,' Alexandra said stiffly. ‘To put breath in your body.'

‘I think it's because you love me,' he said.

It was dark and still all around them. She stared at him, and then made a little gesture of contempt. ‘Love, love. You're always using the word. I don't know what it means!'

He got up and held out his hand to her. ‘I think the time has come for me to teach you.'

They lay together in the darkness in the straw as close as when they had made love; for a time they both drifted from their fulfilment into sleep, and then they awoke together, slowly and in silence they covered their chilled bodies, and he lay on her as much in possession as to keep her warm.

‘I've had many men,' she said.

‘I know that,' he said. ‘It doesn't matter. I've had a lot of women.'

She laughed and squeezed her arms round him. ‘I can tell that. Why is it so different this time? Or isn't it different for you?'

‘Quite different,' he said. ‘It always is when you make love to someone you're in love with. The other men weren't in love with you. I swear most of them were frightened of you. I love you. I suppose you won't say you love me?'

‘Why not?' she said suddenly. ‘It's true, I do love you. I loved you so much that I could have killed you for risking yourself like that today. I could have struck you for it!'

‘I know.' He was laughing at her, but tenderly, with joy. ‘You're such a fierce creature, my darling, so fierce and wonderful. I adore you. Why can't we be in a warm, civilised bed instead of this damned place—'

He yawned and kissed her. Her body ached from the onslaught of pleasure and from the new and marvellous delight of being dominated with a mastery that remained when the physical cycle was completed. Love, he said. Alexandra kissed him back, hard and hotly, with an admixture of tenderness that made it infinitely satisfying. She did love him. There had never been a lover to compare with him; they were like ghosts, these others, the neighbours always so anxious about the scandal, the nervous peasants bidden into her bed and paid off afterwards, the instruments of pleasure she had used and despised and thought had some relation to love and the real act of loving.